Yesterday we had the privilege of having one of our World Missions partners with us.  Scott Williams from El Salvador.  He talked about their journey as family that has taken them through many ups and downs and how God has been so faithful to them and the people they are serving.  He referenced Joshua 1:1-9 in our discussions.

Again you blew me away with your generosity for this family and your heart for missions.  You donated $1200 to this mission!!!  So proud of you.  Here is a link to stay connected with the Williams http://www.lifechurchoshawa.com/missions/elsalvador/  and continue to keep all our partners in your prayers.

Join Pastor Randy As He Continues His Series On A Lenten Journey with Easter Sunday

We had a great Palm Sunday gathering yesterday and continued our series entitled “The Lenten Journey from Hate to Forgiveness”. Part 2 of the teaching revisited Jesus’ Triumphal Entry down a Rocky Road from Matthew 21:1-16.

Three take-aways would be as follows;

a) Just Be There – on the road

b) Be Stirred – In your soul and this city

c) Who Is This? – Jesus the Prophet or Messiah?

Have a great week and we will see you on Easter Sunday.

 

We officially entered into the Easter Season yesterday and we began a series entitled “The Lenten Journey from Hate to Forgiveness”.  Part 1 of the teaching centered around hating what God hates and loving what God loves.  The three main text were Proverbs 6:16-19, 1 Peter 3:18 and Micah 6:8.  The point that really has stuck with me is hating the evil within and that the ultimate essence of that evil is to prefer anything to God.  Jesus’ s sacrifice for us was, as 1 Peter 3:18 explains, TO BRING US TO GOD and our take home is to ultimately hate anything that disrupts that connection.

This week, LOVE what God LOVES and HATE what he HATES and see where that takes you on this Lenten Journey.

We wrapped up our 4 part series entitled “Small Things With Great Love” this past Sunday.  Our final message was on “Embracing the Possibilities”.  The possibilities of what God’s Love can do (In us & Through Us).  From 1 Chronicles 4:10 we talked about the expanding of our territory.  We then moved into Jeremiah to discuss being on the potter’s wheel and being formed and reshaped (we also watched this video).

I used an illustration from one of our national tragedies in 1917 – The Halifax Explosion –  to explain how important it is for us all to work together to rebuild, improve and bring transformation; and I quoted from the 1917 poster that said “We shall never rebuild Halifax unless we ALL WORK”.  We finished off our talk with Jesus’ example from John 8:1-11 of a small thing with great love where he scribbled in the sand and then went on to say from John 8:12 to be light to this world.  Our hope is that we could passionately say to those around us to “follow me as I follow Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).

Part 3 in Pastor Randy’s Series Small Things With Great Love

Happy Valentine’s week everyone.  Well done to all those that braved the Canadian Winter to make out to church.  Yesterday we continued our series entitled “Small Things with Great Love”.  Our theme for the morning was; Do we really know how much God loves us?  The very familiar John 3:16 says God SOOOOOOO loves us.  Are we convinced of this?  Does it really matter to you?  Paul writes to the Romans 8:37-39 that he is convinced that nothing can separate him from God’s love.  Are you?  We spent some time in Ephesians 3:14-21 talking about being strengthened in our inner being and being rooted and established in Love and that we might have the knowledge about a love that God has for us that surpasses understanding.

Thank you Christa for kicking off our series entitled “Small Things with Great Love”. This simple concept is sometimes not so simple to live out. Christa started off with a great quote from Mother Teresa who said; “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love”. This is so true. The bible is full of great examples of this very principal. Christa talked about kingdom principals like; the first being last (Matt.20:16) and becoming a servant (Matt.20:26-28), the “poor” becoming rich in faith and inheritance. I also caught one really cool quote between my hacking and coughing from Bob Goff who says; “If we don’t see hurting, isolated people when we fix our eyes on Jesus we’re not looking hard enough.” The final challenge was this – Do something small for one person – one stranger – this week, and do it with great love.

This past Sunday we had almost all our local Missions partners at our gathering to talk about how we can help them and further develop our partnership with them.  Please visit this section of our webpage to view our partners www.lifechurchoshawa.com/missions/local/

On Sunday we finished off our 2-week series entitled “It’s not Revolutionary, it’s Christianity” that is focused on the Christ Life and doing the little things right.  Yesterday the main part of our discussions were about one of the fruits of the spirits (Galatians 5:22-26) that is foundational to our Christianity a becoming a stable Christ follower.  We talked about FAITHFULNESS.  Doing the right things right as often as possible for as long as it takes over and over again.  We discovered that FAITHFULNESS is built up by doing 2 things:

* Repetition – Galatians 6:8b-9

* Addition – 2 Peter 1:3-11